Issues and Debates - Nature-Nurture debate Flashcards
Key definitions
Nature-nurture debate -
This is a debate over whether genetics or environmental influences have the most contribution to human development and behaviour
Nature -
The innate, presumably genetically determined, characteristics and behaviours of an individual
Nurture -
The totality of environmental factors that influence the development and behaviour of a person, particularly sociocultural and ecological factors such as family attributes, parental child-rearing practices and economic factors
Heredity -
The process by which traits are passed down genetically from one generation to the next
Environment -
The physical external world which we interact with and can produce experiences that navigate behaviour - non-genetic factors that cause individual differences
Interactionist approach -
This is the view that both nature and nurture work together in order to shape human behaviour, best illustrated by the genetic disorder of PKU activated by environmental circumstances
Heritability coefficient -
The measure of how well differences in people’s genes account for differences in their traits - it is how important genetics are to a trait, with a high heritability indicating genetics explain much of the variation of a trait between people (close to 1), an a low heritability (close to 0) indicates that most of the variation in a trait is not genetic
Sides of the nature-nurture debates
1) The view of nativists of behaviour -
- This is the view that certain skills or abilities are native or hard wired into the brain at birth - they would suggest that nature is the driving factor in human behaviour and development
- Important elements of language and cognitive development are attributed to innate traits, with nativists believing that some traits are wired to be learned, such as language
- Chomsky - influential nativist, who rejected the idea that human behaviour is a blank slate, and that language is a native trait, with children demonstrating signs of learning grammar (the brain contains certain linguistic information that allows children to learn the basic structure of language) and so language is innate and also relative to the language environment
- The predisposition to learn is triggered when they hear speech etc and their brain interprets based on underlying structures it already knows (Language Acquisition Device of universal grammar that helps them to learn the language they are exposed to)
2) The view of empiricists of behaviour -
- All knowledge we develop comes from our experiences or requires experience to be validated - we learn and acquire from our environment
- Denies the existence of innate ideas, and that the mind is tabula rasa (a blank slate)
- They therefore favour a nurture approach to the debate, and their assumptions of all human behaviour being learned laid the foundation of behaviourist theories that blame environmental factors for informing behaviour
- They believe that behaviour should be able to be objectively studied, and that they only focus could be on observable behaviour and the influence of the observable environment upon it, unlike nativists who would suggest that there are innate systems that explain external behaviour
The nature v nurture debate - detailed
- This is a psychological debate over whether genetic predispositions such as our heredity and nature influence our behaviour the most or whether it is our environment and experiences that influence our behaviour the most
- Nativists advocate the former, and empiricists the latter
- The debate agrees behaviour is determined - the argument is over what determines it
- Nature - heavily biological determinism
- Nurture - environmental determinism
- The nature-nurture debate is concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics - Inherited = nature; acquired = nurture.
- It’s about the relative contribution of both of these factors.
Nativists and nature
- Began with Nativists like Descartes.
- Human characteristics are innate (the result of heredity).
- Heredity is assessed using the heritability coefficient. It determines how genetically determined a behaviour or characteristic is. It is a number measured between 0 and 1 e.g. IQ = 0.5.
- In the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are “native” or hard-wired into the brain at birth.
Empiricists and nurture
- Began with Empiricists like Locke.
- Mind is a blank slate at birth.
- Behaviour is the result of experience, the environment and learning.
- Empiricism (founded by John Locke) states that the only source of knowledge comes through our senses
Levels of the environment:
1) Prenatal conditions - the mother’s psyche and physical attributes
2) Social conditions (post-natal)
3) Cultural and historical conditions (post-natal)
Evidence for the interaction of nature and nurture - Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
- This is a condition of infant deformation that occurs due to the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy
- Can cause - movement, balance, vision and hearing
learning, such as problems with thinking, concentration, and memory managing emotions and developing social skills, hyperactivity and impulse control communication, such as problems with speech
the joints, muscles, bones, and organs, such as the kidneys and heart - Factors of nature = hormones received in the womb
- Factors of nurture = mother alcohol addiction (nature of addiction and nurture = drinking because of stress etc), child abuse/trauma, education and religion
- SYNOPSIS ACROSS THE COURSE - forensics (genetic v psychological explanations for offending), schizophrenia (biological approach v psychological), attachment (learning theories v maternal deprivation) and psychopathology (biological approach v behaviorist appproach)
The interactionist approach to nature v nurture
- The interactionist approach is the idea that nature and nurture are linked to the extent that it doesn’t make sense to separate them. We should study how they interact and influence each other instead.
- A diathesis-stress model suggests that psychopathology is caused by a biological/genetic vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger (the stressor).
The relative importance of heredity and the environment
- Nature and nurture are so closely intertwined that practically and theoretically, it makes little sense to try to separate them.
- For example, in twin studies, high concordance rates could be more the result of shared genetics or more the result of shared upbringing.
- Therefore, psychologists now focus on the relative contribution of each influence in terms of what we think and do (this is the nature-nurture debate).
- Studying how nature and nurture interact and influence each other is an interactionist approach
EXAM TIP - Make it clear that it is the idea that behaviour could be due to nature [define] or nurture [define].
Then – discuss how it is about the relative contribution of the two.
Examples within the interactionist approach
1) Child’s innate temperament <-> child’s behaviour <-> parent’s reaction to child’s behaviour
2) Diathesis stress model - These models suggest that psychopathology is caused by a biological/genetic vulnerability (the diathesis) which only expresses when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger (stress).
- The neural diathesis-stress model of schizophrenia proposes that stress, acts upon a pre-existing vulnerability to trigger and/or worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia (perhaps through cortisol production)
- The diathesis-stress model of abnormality says that people are born with a vulnerability to a certain mental illness, and life stressors influence whether they will end up getting that disease or not. For example, people with OCD might inherit a gene that makes them more likely to develop OCD than the average person. Might be triggered by stressful life event (starting uni etc)
Examples of nature
1) Evolution
- A behavior or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected and passed on to future generations
- Bowlby’s attachment theory suggests that attachment is adaptive because it means an infant is more likely to be protected
2) Genetic
- The closer two individuals are genetically, the more likely it is that they will develop the same behaviors
- For example, the concordance rate for a mental disorder such as schizophrenia is 40% for MZ twins and 7% for DZ twins
Examples of nurture
1) Behaviourism
- Assumes that all behavior can be explained using the principles of classical and operant conditioning
- attachment could also be explained by infants associating their mothers with food
2) Social Learning Theory
- Behavior is acquired through direct learning and indirect learning (vicarious reinforcement)
- A child may have the biological urge to occasionally act aggressively but the way that they express this anger may be imitated as a result of the observation of models
Influences of nature on nurture - interactionist approach
Reactive influence -
- Genetic factors create an infant’s microenvironment and the predisposition for a particular skill or behavior has an influence on how people react to the infant
Passive influence -
- Parent’s genes are passed onto the infant, and so these same genes create the environment for the infant
Active influence -
- As children grow older, they seek out experiences and environments that suit their genes
Nurture affecting nature
Neural plasticity
- Life experiences shape biology, with an increased use of neural pathways strengthening the neural connections in that pathway
Evaluating the nature v nurture debate
1) Nativists suggest that our inherited genetic makeup determines our characteristics and behavior, whilst the environment has little input - this extreme determinist stance has led to controversy, such as linking IQ to race and intelligence and the application of eugenics politics and justification of discriminatory practices in the workplace or wider society
- This could be used to shape social policy without considering the effects of the environment, and in extreme cases this has led to social control such as sterilization in the ‘feeble-minded’
2) Research attempting to tease out the relative influence of the environment are complicated by the fact that even siblings raised within the same family may not have experienced exactly the same upbringing, and it is suggested that individual differences mean that siblings may experience life events differently; for instance, when parents divorce, an older more relaxed child may respond differently to a younger and more anxious child
- This supports the idea that nature and nurture cannot be meaningfully separated
Evaluating the nature v nurture debate - pt2; supporting interactionism
3) Genetics may have indirect effects - for instance, a child who is genetically more aggressive might provoke a more aggressive response in others, and so they influence the microenvironment - additionally, a parent with a genetically determined mental illness creates an unsettled home environment which could lead to a child’s mental disorder
- Furthermore, as children age, they seek out experiences and environments that suit their genes, and this supports the view that nature and nurture cannot be meaningfully separated
4) Your life experiences shape your biology - such as taxi drivers with more spatial processing than controls - this is not because they were born this way, but their hippocampus has responded to increased use - this supports the view that nature and nurture cannot be meaningfully separated
